Where Is The Green Nozzle?

Government had announced that starting 1st September 2009, RON92 (a.k.a. Regular) will be removed from the market and it will be replaced by the better grade of petrol which is RON95. RON95 will become the first choice of consumers while RON97 (a.k.a. Super) will be promoted to be the premium grade and will be sold at higher price.

When I visited one of the Shell petrol station in town recently, I felt weird because the green nozzle which suppose representing RON97 are totally unseen from the station! I thought only the red nozzles (RON92) would be replaced by the yellow one (RON95) and the green one will remain? Is it not so?

I scratched my head. But after I think about it, I guess it is probably because the petrol station owner doesn't want to buy RON97 for the time being as government haven't clearly fix the selling price yet. Although government did mention RON97 will be sold at RM2.00 per liter starting September, but that's not the final word.

I am not sure if that's the explanation some petrol stations stop selling RON97, please correct me if I am wrong, will you?

Anyway, it is too bad that government did not explain clearly to the public about the issue of mixing RON95 with RON97. But you just have no choice when there is only RON95 left at the petrol station. Many of my friends and colleagues including myself already mixed them and so far our vehicles still can move on the road. So what do you say?

Vessel Hit It Again!

It happened again! This is not the first but the 2nd time pavilion at Jiang Zhuang Garden being hit by container vessel!

Last year on 29th May 2008, 1 out of total 2 pavilions owned by Jiang Zhuang Association beside Sibu Tua Pek Kong Temple accidentally being knocked by a vessel and entirely collapsed!

After one year, the association started the rebuilding of the collapsed pavilion. While the reconstruction still in progress, on 17th August 2009 which was about 10 days ago, the other pavilion which escaped the tragedy a year ago this time couldn't avoid the unfortunate incident.

The pavilion was hit when a container vessel wanted to berth at the adjacent Rejang Port Authority. Athough there is saying that strong river wave might be one of the cause of the incident but I guess poor seamanship would be the main reason.

After being hit, the pavilion was damaged badly and totally collapsed! There were 2 persons, one fishing and another one resting under the pavilion at the time the tragedy occured, but luckily both of them were not hurted and saved.

Well, I was wondering if the association did consider about all these when they decided to build the pavilions that close to the port. Anyway, today the association's president told the press that maybe the council should consider building few piers to avoid the vessels to navigate too close to the pavilions, but I am doubt if that is the best solution.

Let say if the vessel hit the piers that protect those pavilions, is that means council shall use taxpayers money to rebuild those damaged piers just to protect the pavilions? I can't see its logic here!

Is this a pure incident? Or a karma?

Swan City Toastmasters Club 7th Installation Dinner @ Tanahmas Hotel

I had been invited to attend Swan City Toastmasters Club 7th installation dinner last night. It was held at Tanahmas Hotel, Sibu.

Swan City Toastmasters Club is a English-based public speaking organization and also one among few toastmaster clubs available in Sibu. The club gives you a platform to sharpen your English public speaking skill, trains you to become a better leader and also boosts up your confident level.

Don't get me wrong! Personally I am not the club's member. I went there for foods really! But as far as I know, if you have interest in public speaking, if you wish to be a better speaker, if you are preparing yourself to be a politician, then I think this is a club you should turn to.

The guest of honor for the night was Dato Sri Wong Soon Koh. Usually I don't really listen to politician's speech but I would say I was quite impressed with his speech on the night. He didn't touch about politics, instead he gave few good examples on the importance of speaking skills, including how world greatest leaders such as Zhu Ge Liang, Zhou En Lai and Sukarno used their speeches to influence the world. His speech matched 2009/2010 toastmasters club theme "Speaking Your Way to Magical Transformation" well.

The sworn-in ceremony for new committee was witness by the guest of honor. The symbolic ceremony which was passing "Office of the President" gavel supposed to be done by the immediate past president to the new president, but somehow the Area Gavernor was "kepo" enough to did that on behalf of the immediate past president which I felt very illogical!

The group singing of toastmasters medley which consist of few very well-known songs including "I have a dream", "Mama Mia", "I will follow you", "I'd like to teach the world to sing" and also "We are the world" by the committee and the members was nice to listen, but I was not sure how many had pay attention to its modified lyrics.

An interesting "Generation Gap" game had been held to cheer the dinner up....

... and also Poco-poco dance by the committee members. This dance was origin from Indonesia, but somehow it was quite famous and always being performed in official occasion nowadays. This is not the first official event I attended which showed this dance.

I guess it was not too hard to learn, just have to familiar with the steps and follow the rhythm. It was very nice to watch!

Highlight of the night! I won a lucky draw with the lucky number 9520! Although it was not expensive stuff but for a person who hardly won any lucky prizes, I think I shouldn't complain more, should I?

So, for those who have interest in Swan City Toastmasters Club (either on the handsome/pretty committee members or club's activities), you can meet them as follow:

2nd and 4th Wednesday of every month
Place: Wisma Huawen Du Zhong, Sibu
Time: 7.30pm - 9.30pm

Yamcha @ Uncle Dom Cafe

Uncle Dom Cafe is a new eating establishment located at Lorong Chew Siik Hiong, somewhere behind Rejang Medical Centre in Sibu.

I had been hearing about this place from colleagues, therefore I suggested to have a try with buddy of mine. When first stepped into the place, I had a strong feeling of being inside the Ipoh Old Town franchise cafe with old and nostalgic photos used as the wallpaper at one corner. These nostalgic photos were purely localized and reflecting some of the Sibu sceneries at old days.

At another corner of the cafe, a giant photo showing a breakfast set consists of a cup of hot coffee and a plate of half-boiled eggs was used as the wallpaper. It gave me the old-town feel again!

Wheareas the wall near the entrance is decorated with colorful foods' photos to stimulate saliva of the customers walking into the shop.

Now come to the foods. A waitress presented us with a nicely printed menu. There were variety of foods and beverages to choose from, yet the prices are rather expensive. I mean the prices are at standard that I used to pay at the similar kind of restaurant in KL. With the income standard average Sibu people earned compared to KL, I would consider these prices are expensive.

After looking through the menu, I finally decided to order a Penang Char Kueh Teow. It tasted good, with wider Kueh Teow fried with some chinese pork sausages, eggs, vege, taugeh and also some small prawns. The portion was quite big and suitable to order if you are really hungry. It costs RM7.90.

For the drink, I went for ice blended chocolate. It priced at RM4.90.


My buddy ordered a chicken chop in black pepper sauce. It came with some beans in tomato sauce, french fries and also caleslaw - typical western food set combination. The chicken chop not really tasty, maybe because of the chicken quality. This set costed him RM8.90. He also ordered a cup of ice blended chocolate.

At the end of the day, this is the bill... with 5% of service charge added to the bill, the total amount is RM27.95 for 2 persons.

While I was busy snapping on the foods, one of the cute waitress sending the food to our table asked me if I did that for blogging. She then told us that she has the same hobby. Hence, I requested for her blog. Without much hesitation, she wrote down her blog address on a piece of paper, but insisted that she couldn't write well.

Anyway, I had read through her blog, not bad really with quite a lot of write up and photos. If you have time, maybe you can pay her a visit at the address shown in above pic.

As a whole, I would say Uncle Dom Cafe is a nice dinning place with comfortable environment and free wifi service despite the food prices might not be acceptable generally by some of the Sibu people.

A Visit to Lau King Howe Hospital Memorial Museum

Some people may not heard about the name "Lau King Howe", but for Sibu people especially those older generation, this name certainly is too familiar for them. The name deserved a very special place in Sibu people's heart as Lau King Howe was the guy that contributed a lot to this land especially in medical field.

Influenced by his father's charitable work, in year 1930, Lau King Howe donated his own property to the state government to build a hospital. Beside the land, he also agreed to contribute half of the total construction costs ($82,000.00) while the other half will be beared by Rajah Brooke's government. The hospital then be named as "The Lau King Howe Hsopital" in honour of its benefactor.

Lau King Howe Hospital had served Sibu people for more than half a century. It was the best and most well-equipped hospital in Sibu at that time. However because of development, the local council felt that the strategic location was no longer suitable to be a hospital. Instead, they decided to close down the hospital and shifted it to a place further from town center.

The local council then decided to develop the place to be the 2nd phase of Sibu Town Square. They planned to entirely leveled and destroyed the hospital buildings. However, this kind of planning had hurt a lot of Sibu people's heart. The name "Lau King Howe Hospital" means too much for them. Therefore, some Chinese based associations and individuals stood up as one voice to protest the decision.

Because of the pressure given by Sibu people, local politicians as well as the council had no choice but to compromise with public view. They finally came out with the decision to reserve the main block of Lau King Howe Hospital and converted it to be "Lau King Howe Hospital Memorial Museum".

That was the place I visited last weekend.

[Lau King Howe Hospital Memorial Museum]

[Outer view of Lau King Howe Hospital Memorial Museum building]

[The main entrance to the museum]

[The statue of Lau King Howe displayed at the lobby area]

[A brief history of Lau King Howe Hospital printed on the wall]

[Section displaying old days surgical equipment]

[Old days sterilize equipment]

[Old days baby care services with wooden phototherapy lamp]

[Neonatal Incubator by oxigenaire used in late 1950s to 1970s]

[Paediatric section]

[Old days radiology machine]

[Vicker Neonatal Respiratory Ventilator]

[Some old haemodialysis machines]

[1981's Philip brand Central Cardiac Monitoring]

[Laboratory section]

[Some old laboratory equipment]

[Oral health section]

[Old dental chair and stool in 1967]

[Another old dental equipment]

[A segment introduced how the Hospital produced "KK" tablets]

[Some old measuring tools used in outpatient pharmacy dispensing]

[Revolution of nurses uniform]

[Model of Lau King Howe Hospital]